So, is Awesome Screenshot, a screen capture add-on for Firefox 4.0 (which I recently installed), Chrome, and Safari really awesome? If you’re an active Blogger and you have a need to capture web graphics, or you’re the type of web enthusiast who likes to share unique content, then I think you’ll agree that it just might be.
Using Awesome Screenshot by activating its Browser toolbar push button icon
(which launches the add-on’s toolbar), you can capture a visible part, a selected part, or an entire web page. You then have the option to annotate the screen capture with rectangles, circles, arrows, lines and even text.
Sample Capture
Saving the image to your Hard Drive, or sharing – by uploading the image to the Pict image hosting site, is a snap. In the following illustration, I’ve uploaded the sample capture to http://awesomescreenshot.com/0879qyp64, which, when clicked, (try it), opens the following.
This neat add-on doesn’t stop there though. You can share your capture on Twitter, Facebook, or Google Buzz – and even email it with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail.
Fast facts:
Capture
- Capture visible part
- Capture any region
- Capture the whole page
- Crop any portion and show crop dimension
Annotate
- Annotate it with rectangles, circles, arrows, lines and text
- Erase the sensitive information with blur tool
Share
- One-click Upload the screenshot to awesomescreenshot.com
and get a sharable link- Hard to guess URL to allow private sharing
- Share the link to Twitter, Facebook, email etc.
To see Awesome Screenshot in action, watch this YouTube video.
Compatible with: Firefox 4.0, Chrome, Safari.
Download at: Mozilla, or the developer’s site.
Note: No restart required for Firefox 4.0 add-on.
Just a quick word on Firefox 4.0, which I’ve been running for a few weeks.
Contrary to most of the hype I’ve been reading regarding Firefox 4.0 which attempts to reposition Firefox 4.0 as the “reinvention” of the Browser, it’s simple not so.
Yes, there are major differences under the hood in this latest version, some of which you may find valuable, but in terms of productivity increases, I doubt if an average user will notice. For example, I have a very high end Video Card which Firefox 4.0 is designed to take advantage of – I have yet to see any improvement in performance based on this.
The following type of pseudo scientific testing is misleading, and really just twists reality out of shape – “performance tests on the Kraken, SunSpider and V8 benchmarks, for example, Firefox 4 blew away previous versions of the browser, with performance results between three and six times better.” The test results may be accurate, but unless you can count in milliseconds, I doubt if you’ll notice any appreciable increase in speed.
Nevertheless, if you’re a Firefox user, you do need to upgrade for security reasons. But don’t expect that you’ll be walking into a new and exciting Browser world.
With all the new releases, upgrades, and what have you in the Browser market in the last few weeks, and the accompany trumpeting of “were the best”, “we’re the fastest”, “we’ve got the best technology”, ad nauseam – it very much reminded me of children bragging in the school yard.
It would be helpful for average users if certain tech journalists, and the product developers, stopped trying to “sell” browsers as if they were used cars, it seems to me.
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Hi Bill
You & your reader might enjoy this short YouTube clip on the American overuse of the adjective awesome
Your remarks regarding the overselling of FF4 are ringing in my head. I upgraded yesterday & maybe I should have waited…
[Ooops ! I meant to type ‘readers‘ above of course 🙂 ]
Hi Michael,
Awesome video clip. 🙂
I must admit, I often get frustrated with the overblown descriptives bandied about in reviewing the attributes of software applications. This type of language just increases my level of skepticism.
Especially in the hot war currently taking place in the Browser market.
Best,
Bill
Hi Bill,
I just wanted to say something about the Firefox 4.
I wanted to use it because it’s open source, and because of the security features when browsing. I like it’s ability to browse in permanent private status, instead of having to open a special window. However, I found that even in full public browsing status (all cookies accepted, flash and java running, pop ups allowed, etc) I could not access my Bell Aliant webmail account. I couldn’t even advance to the login page for my email. I can on Chromium and Opera.
I want to use Firefox but I’m afraid if I can’t get into my email it isn’t going to happen. I’m assuming it isn’t a problem with my computer because the others browsers work and because my computer is running a clean install of Linux Mint 10 and has been running perfectly for a couple of weeks.
Best Wishes
Paul
Hi Paul,
I see you’re now in Mint – good one!
A very unusual issue. I’m assuming other sites aren’t affected?
Did you download through the depository, or directly from Mozilla? The reason I ask is – I understand there may be some issues with the depository download, since it is now yet (apparently) the final release of FF 4.0, but instead, is still Beta 13.
If this is really the case, you may want to wait a few days and then retry the install.
Best,
Bill
Hi Bill,
I waited for the official download from Mozilla. Everything else works fine, except the email issue. It’s very frustrating. lol I’ve tried switching everything off, privacy settings, etc but nothing works. It’s a weird problem. Never had anything like it. It’s not just that I can’t login, I can’t even get the login page.
Paul
Hi Paul,
OK – I gotcha. Try each of the following.
Clear your cache.
Make sure JavaScript is enabled in FF.
Make sure cookies are allowed. (it’s also possible your cookies file is corrupted – but we’ll wait and see).
Run FF without any add-ons (extensions) to help isolate the problem.
Best,
Bill
Thanks Bill,
I’ll try your suggestions. Busy shovelling snow at the moment. lol I’ll let you know what happens.
Thank you
Paul
Hey Paul,
Good luck with that – and the snow removal. 🙂
Best,
Bill
Hey Bill,
It worked! 🙂
I did as you suggested, and after I disabled all the plugins I could access my email. I will just turn them on one by one and see which is the problem.
Thank you Bill. 🙂 It was really causing me a headache.
Paul
Hey Paul,
Very cool! A bit of a pain, but hey – success is success. Good one!
Best,
Bill
All thanks to you, Bil.
I really appreciate your help.
Thank you. 🙂
Paul
Bill,
Thanks for the tips on the “Awesome” screenshot browser, I’m going to download it in a few minutes. And I agree with the over-hype of FF 4.0 by Mozilla and the media. Everybody’s trying to make a buck these days. Hey…at least we didn’t have to pay for the software! As always, you’re on top of things for us.
Best,
Paul
Hi Paul,
As a fellow Blogger, hopefully you’ll find this add-on useful.
lol! You’re right, we may have to listen to the BS, but – “at least we didn’t have to pay for the software!”
Best,
Bill
Hi Bill:
Great article. I have IE9, Firefox, & Google Chrome on Win 7 machine. Also have Firefox & Chrome running on Ubuntu Maverick & Mint Julia from external drive. All are good browsers in their own way. If users want to see major speed increases nothing works better than upping connection speed rather than listening to the hype. Of the major browsers in my opinion nothing beats Chrome for security, speed, ease of use, & the updates come fast & furious. Heck, they pushed out Flash Player update 3 days before Adobe. Awesome Screenshot is awesome. Use it all the time. Milliseconds, yikes, what’s that!!!
Regards,
Michael
Hi Michael,
There’s no question about it – “If users want to see major speed increases nothing works better than upping connection speed rather than listening to the hype.”
Your experience with Chrome duplicates my own, on both Win 7 and Ubuntu. In fact, this new version of FF is a disappointment – I’ve had to deal with one issue after another since I installed it. I would have though that after 13 beta versions, Mozilla would have gotten the bugs out.
Best,
Bill
Hey Bill,
I installed FF4 on my WinXP desktop system the day it was released. I’m a big fan of the browser and have used it since the early betas. This version made my cursor movement very jerky and unstable whenever the browser was open (even if the cursor wasn’t passing over the browser window). As I moved the mouse, the cursor would sort of stop/go/stop/go several times along the way, as if it was “snagging” itself and not keeping up with the mouse movement. In fact, just having FF running would make the cursor act up anywhere on my desktop or over other applications’ windows. If I closed FF, the problem would stop. Since my business requires a lot of writing and online research, this is kind of a deal-breaker for me, as it is quite distracting. I downgraded to version 3.6.15 and things are fine again.
Has anybody had this issue with the new Firefox? I haven’t been able to find much discussion about this online yet.
Hey Phil,
Like you, I’ve been a user since version 1 beta and I never imagined I’d consider dropping FF entirely. But, I’m almost at that point.
I’m not plagued with the issue you’re dealing with, but I have several others – including “bleed through” from one site to another (I can see one site behind another site, in the same tab). “Always show the tab bar”, which is critical for me, refuses to work. And that, for me, is a deal-breaker.
I haven’t seen your problem discussed on the Net yet, but there are some major problems with this version if the volume of complaints posted so far, is any indication.
Best,
Bill
Hi Phil ~ Warning: I’m not a propeller head so read my comments with a spadeful of salt please…
[I hope Bill will edit the below if I write something reeeeally dumb]
Firefox 4 has it’s own hardware acceleration maybe that’s part of it.
Or I think something in FF4 or your FF4 add-ons is sucking up resources (memory). That can make a mouse pointer ‘laggy’. If you were still using FF4 I would have suggested disabling all the FF4 add-ons & bring them back in one-by-one.
Or updated drivers for your video card & mouse ?
###
In XP/FF4 I have a minor hassle with the pointer no longer ‘snapping-to’ the default button in the dialog box of my Yahoo mail. I can’t be bothered to try & fix this ~ I’ll wait to see if the next update solves the problem 🙂
Hey Michael,
All your suggestions are definitely worth considering.
BTW, you are a propeller head! 🙂
Best,
Bill
that’ll teach me to be less modest
Thanks, Michael.
My mouse drivers are up to date and I had added a better video card several months ago – drivers current there too.
The add-ons + hdwr acceleration thing sounds like the culprit. Makes sense. But since not having FF4 is not a big deal to me, I can work just fine with 3.6. I like having Adblock, Better Privacy and WOT – hate to lose those, and they all play nice in 3.6. I did have to shut off the auto-update feature to keep FF from installing 4. I also have Chrome installed if I need a backup browser that’s fast.
Maybe this will be fixed in version 4.01 or 4.02 or 4.03 or…. 😉
Hi Bill,
I’ve installed FF4 and, so far have had no issues EXCEPT that 22 (yes 22!) extensions that ran perfectly on 3.6.13 have been disabled as incompatible. I suspect these are 3rd party add-ons and that the providers will catch up, eventually. They probably got caught out by the speed with which FF4 came to market!!
I will stick with FF4 for the security aspect but am not over-impressed otherwise.
Kind regards
John
Hi John,
I guess I was lucky – virtually all of my add-ons worked out of the chute. The others, as you suggest, will come along in time.
Yes, the security aspect is the reason I haven’t ditched this beast and reverted back to 3. I will say, I’m spending much more time in Chrome now.
Best,
Bill